Star Trek #1649: Ishtar Rising, Book 2

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: S.C.E. #31, Pocket Books, September 2003

CREATORS: Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels

STARDATE: From 53798.2 (immediately after Book 1)

PLOT: After Patty effects a rescue of a Venusian ground station in the way of the lava flow, Gomez contacts Soloman, still overwhelmed by the weight of the numbers, for a proper solution. Though distracted by the discrimination against him, he things of one. He calculates a way to turn the forcefields currently expelling Venus' atmosphere into space into a funnel to relieve the planet's geothermic pressure. Magma is expelled into space, preventing it from overtaking the various terraforming stations and creating a ring around the planet that could, one day, become a moon. For his trouble, Soloman doesn't get any more respect from the Bynar pair who rage-quit Project Ishtar, but he does come to understand that home, for him, is the da Vinci and his friendships there.

CONTINUITY: See previous.

DIVERGENCES: See previous.

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK - Venus blows a gasket

REVIEW: Part 2 of Ishtar Rising starts in a desperate situation and keeps up a breakneck pace until, well yes, the pressure is relieved in the plot and the personal subplot, a neat combination of theme, style and story. As usual for this series, the engineering solutions are clever and don't strictly rely on technobabble magic. And in this case, the personal story avoids strict formula too. I thought for sure we were headed for a scene where the Bynars came to respect the "singleton" in their midst, but no, the book takes a more realistic route and is the better for it. After all, who cares about Bynaus? It's the da Vinci we call home too.